The present disclosure relates to enterprise content management (ECM), and more specifically, to storing ECM check-in information to a file or associated file sent to a client computer.
Many organizations use ECM systems to store electronic content, such as documents, multimedia, and binary applications. Further, ECM systems provide mechanisms for document management. Generally, a user requesting access to a given file stored on an ECM system must “check-out” the file. When a user checks out a file, the ECM system sends a copy of the file stored on the system to the local machine of the user. While the file is checked out by a user, other users have limited access to the file (e.g., other users may be able to view but not modify the file) to maintain consistency. Full access to the file may be restricted until the user checks-in the file. At check-in, updates made by the user to the local file are committed to the corresponding file stored on the ECM system.
However, the check-in process on the user side may be cumbersome. Typically, a user accesses the ECM system via a web interface. When checking-in a file to the ECM system, the user has to, via the interface, identify the corresponding file on the ECM system, select the updated file on the local machine, and then upload the document. Such an approach requires a fair amount of manual steps, especially where folder hierarchies for the file on either system are deep. For example, the user may need to perform a series of mouse clicks to navigate directories when determining the location of the file on the local system and then again on the ECM system. Current approaches to address this issue include using a file tracking application on the local machine. The file tracker is a client-side ECM tool that facilitates finding a document from a hard drive during the check-in process by tracking a status of a checked-out document. However, the file tracker can fail if the user moves the document to another location after checking the file out from the ECM system (e.g., if the user e-mails the checked-out document to another user). Therefore, the check-in process is time-consuming and inefficient.